1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for sending messages including multimedia content, and more particularly, to a method and system for sending messages including multimedia content via mobile devices using Multimedia Messaging Service.
2. Description of the Related Art
Short Message Service (SMS) is part of the GSM specification wherein short text messages may be sent or received via mobile phones or devices. Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a more recent enhanced as well as multimedia extension of SMS wherein messages including multimedia content may be sent or received via mobile phones or devices.
SMS messages are limited to 160 alpha-numeric characters and contain no images or graphics. SMS is a store-and-forward service, wherein messages are not sent directly between users but rather via an SMS Center. That is, once a message is sent by an originating mobile device or PC, the message is received by a SMS Center, which must then deliver it to the recipient's mobile device. To do this, the SMS Center sends a SMS Request to the home location register (HLR) to find a status of the recipient's mobile device. Once the HLR receives the request, the HLR responds to the SMS Center with the status of the recipient's mobile device, including whether the recipient's mobile device is inactive or active, and whether and where the recipient's mobile device is roaming. If the response is “inactive”, then the SMS Center stores the message for a period of time. When the recipient's mobile device is accessed, the HLR sends a SMS Notification to the SMS Center, and the SMS Center attempts delivery. The SMS Center transfers the message in a Short Message Delivery Point to Point format to a serving system. The system pages the recipient's mobile device, and if it responds, the message gets delivered. The SMS Center receives verification that the message was received by the recipient's mobile device, then categorizes the message as being sent and does not attempt to send the message again.
MMS is the next generation of message service that may ultimately replace SMS. As its name suggests, MMS provides for the sending and receiving of messages comprising a combination of rich multimedia content including text, images, audio and video to MMS capable mobile phones or devices. Similar to SMS, MMS is a delivery service that uses store-and-forward technology rather than requiring an intermediate Internet-style mailbox. However, unlike SMS, virtually no limit is placed on the size or the sophistication of MMS message content. Further, MMS messages can be exchanged between MMS-enabled mobile devices and Internet e-mail accounts.
MMS utilizes a relay platform, hereafter referred to as an “MMS relay”, which may include a relay for routing multimedia messages, an MMS server for handling and storing messages waiting to be delivered to destination devices in a message store, wherein the relay and the MMS server can be separate or integrated.
To send a multimedia message, a sender mobile device transmits the multimedia message to an MMS Relay. If the recipient's mobile device is served by a different MMS Relay, the sender's MMS Relay forwards the multimedia message to the recipient's MMS Relay. The recipient's MMS Relay sends the recipient's mobile device a notification that a new message is waiting. The recipient's mobile device can then download the message immediately or at a later time. The system may also be configured so that the multimedia message is automatically downloaded to the recipient's mobile device. Once the multimedia message is successfully downloaded, the sender's mobile device may be provided with a message indicating that the multimedia message was delivered.
As the use of MMS grows, wireless networks will need to handle ever-growing data traffic, since multimedia content elements, such as images, audio and video, are commonly much larger than current elements of data traffic such as SMS and mobile e-mail. Accordingly, there is a need to limit the impact and overload on wireless networks by improving the efficiency of such multimedia content transfers.
Inefficiencies are introduced by the architecture and message flow in MMS. As previously discussed, a multimedia message (e.g., an image) is sent from a sender's mobile device to a sender's MMS Relay, through the sender's MMS Relay to the recipient's MMS Relay, and then to the recipient's mobile device. Accordingly, this process consumes considerable bandwidth with the same multimedia content shuttling back and forth. In particular, the multimedia content may be forwarded by the recipient on to a third party; in such a case, the same multimedia content traverses the network additional times, adding further to the inefficient use of bandwidth.
Existing caching systems, such as Akamai content delivery service, operate to significantly reduce the number of legs of the traffic by providing Internet caching services for content that is sent by a Web server. In Akamai's service, caching mechanisms retain copies of content (e.g., Web pages or components of Web pages) in various physical locations, and transmit requested content to recipients from the nearest physical/geographical location in order to eliminate multiple transfers of content between distant locations. Upon publication of the content by a service provider, the content is loaded into the various caches and tagged with a reference (e.g., a URI). In all subsequent message transfer transactions, the reference to the content is transferred, rather than the content itself, until the end-user requests to view the content. When the end-user requests to view the content, the reference is used to retrieve the content from the cache which nearest to the end-user.
Three entities are involved in Akamai's service process: (a) the Web server, (b) the cache, and (c) the end-user's browser. Assuming that the Web server and the end-user's browser are located far away from each other and the cache is located close to the browser, the following stages are involved in the transfer of the content. First, the browser requests content from the Web server. Second, the server responds with an HTML page that contains a reference to the content. At this stage, the server does not send the content itself since this would require expensive bandwidth over the long distance between them. Third, the browser sends the reference to the cache and the cache sends the content to the browser to be viewed by the end-user. Since this takes place over a short physical distance, the bandwidth is relatively inexpensive.
However, existing caching solutions are based on the users receiving references to cached content. Therefore, caching the content and conversion to reference must be done beforehand, i.e., upon publication of the content. Moreover, content which was not previously cached and converted to reference upon publication is transferred as is, with no elimination of duplicate transfers.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2002/0013154 (Soh et al.) discloses a method for generating multimedia events, such as images and/or sound in a mobile station, using a Short Message Service. An originating mobile station transmits an index corresponding to a selected multimedia event and an identification number of a receiving mobile station to a short message service center. The short message service center checks whether the receiving mobile station already contains data corresponding to the selected multimedia event using a database accessed by the short message service center. If the receiving mobile station already contains the data, the short message service center transmits only the index corresponding to the selected multimedia event to the receiving mobile station.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2001/0026376 (I'Anson) discloses a system for transferring an image over a mobile radio network. A mobile entity incorporating digital camera functionality generates both a high resolution picture image and a low resolution thumbnail. The thumbnail is distributed via a mobile radio infrastructure to a service system which then transfers the thumbnail to specified recipients. After viewing the thumbnail, each recipient indicates to the service system whether the recipient wishes to receive the high resolution image. The high resolution picture image is then transferred from the mobile entity to those recipients wanting to receive the high resolution image.